Beginning our 8th year and over 3000 pages. A blog for fans of Track and Field from the 1950's and 60's, culled from various articles in sports journals of the day with added commentaries from readers who lived and ran and coached in that era.
We're the equivalent of an American Legion post of Track and Field but without cheap beer. You may contact us directly at irathermediate@gmail.com or write a comment at the end of a given posting.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

V. 6 N. 59 Rio 2016 More from our round the track observers

Well, the games are all but wrapped up and we can finally go back to the past and live the dreams that life is made of. Here are some final comments on the last two days. Perhaps more will follow, and if they do, I'll add them to this post.

Here too is the next Jim Fixx question for the superintelligent.
Actually it is several questions.

1. What eight-letter word has only one vowel?
2. What word contains all five vowels in alphabetical order?
3. What word contains three sets of double letters in a row?
4. Punctuate the following so it makes sense: John while James had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.
5. What do the following words have in common? deft, first, calmness, canopy, laughing, stupid, crabcake, hijack

From a Sydney, Australia newspaper. I found this a very interesting interview post race with Semenya and a pretty unbiased assessment of what everyone has been talking about regarding hyperandrogeny.

.

Fourth place Canadian in 800 Melissa Bishop had a hard time holding in her frustrations on CBC interview last night but managed.

I think the conclusion that you be allowed to play under the conditions that nature provided you is the fairest way to go. If you're 7 feet tall you think basketball or volleyball,. If you're a 5'4" male you wrestle. If you're a failed gymnast , you polevault, and on and on. If you're a genius you write a track blog But excluding someone because of a DNA anomaly is not ethical. In a completely different way the East Germans tried to chemically turn young girls into men with winning results and disastrous long term physiological consequences. So making a hyperandrogenous person take drugs to diminish their testosterone levels would put us into the same boat as the East Germans.The CBC interview with Mohammed Ahmed the Canadian Somali runner who got 4th in the 5000 was one of the most emotional of the games. He bombed in the 10,000 but got himself back together during the week to run well in the 5000 heats and final, he but was seriously disappointed in not getting a medal. At one point he was event temporarily DQ'd, but reinstated.

Matt Centrowitz was no suprise winning with a 50.9 last lap after a 66 sec. opening lap, followed by a 70, the suprise was that Kiprop didn't win or even place. Overall I'd say this was one of the better track meets in history for spectacle and performance.

If you can believe this, the CBC pre-empted the evening's events (women's 800, men's 1500 and 5000, the relays, men's javelin and women's high jump) last night for a farewell concert by the band Tragically Hip. The band lead singer has a terminal illness, and this performance was nationally more important than the last night of track and field. The C BC broadcast crew seemed to think this was perfectly normal. Oh well, each nation has its priorities. I'll be interested in Bruce's comments on that one. I must admit I've only heard the name of the band, never one of their songs or the names of the band members. Crap I'm old. By the way, the Spanish lady who won the High Jump, 37 years old Ruth Beitia, was a little spooky flicking her fingers from an extended hand before each jump. I thought she might be putting a curse on the other jumpers. She had that look about her. Excuse my prejudice, but she scared me.

Then this morning during the critical phase of the men's marathon, at about 30Km, CBC went to a press conference with a bunch of long winded delegation officials to announce who would carry the Maple Leaf at the closing ceremonies. I don't care. Only redeeming feature was that they had a split screen with half covering the marathon, so I could turn off the sound and cover the right side of the screen with my shirt and socks and focus on the race. Multi-tasking is not my strong suit. Jared Ward's sixth place was a bigger achievement even than Rupp's third. We expected a medal from Galen, but not this high of a finish from Ward. Nice work.

Other interesting thing this AM was a contested ruling in a bronze medal wrestling match between a Mongolian and an Kyrgestani. The Mongolian started leaping around celebrating with about 5 seconds to go and was penalized two points for not trying to wrestle, which cost him the match. Mongolian coaches protested and stripped down to their skivvies on the mat while throwing their clothes at the judges. I could see our friend Steve doing this on a dq protest for 9 and under 50 meters race in suburban Kettering, OH and being mobbed by Kettering matrons. So much for this.

George

Richard Trace

Yeah, that Steve!

Richard Trace

to me

I also was flabbergasted by the rock concert preemption. Fortunately, living on the shores of Lake Erie, I could bounce back and forth between Canadian and U.S. TV. Worked amazingly well for ads too. I don't know what to do with myself now that I can no longer stomp about the house screaming, "Shut the f--- up!" at the 'color' people, but at least the neighbors are talking less about having me exiled now.

George Brose

to Richard

Hey, you've still got besebol, Canadian Football League, NFL preseason,

and the Tour of Spain started yesterday.

Bruce Kritzler

to me

George,
Have only seen Tragically Hip once (on tv) and didn't understand the Canadian fascination with them. They appear to be a good (not great) band that always were anti-(mainstream, popular, publicity seeking, radio, financially motivated) so endeared themselves to a segment of the Canadian populous. Believe they had a large number of rotating members to the group.
Just don't think women with two balls (even one) should be racing with women with none.
Kiprop did everything possible to lose that 1500, and suceeded. When you've jogged 3 laps, then run 50.2 or .9, not many people are going to be able to pass you. Reminded me of 1988, with unknown Rono winning 1500 from the front.
Rupp gets bronze in second marathon. Kipchoge with a brilliant win.Kipchoge shows he can win paced/big city or Championship type race!
Bruce

From: George Brose

George Brose<irathermediate@gmail.com>

to Bruce

A 2;16 800 takes the joy out of watching a 1500. Maybe they should just qualifiy for the final and then run a 400 in lanes to see who is the winner. It was sort of like watching NASCAR, the last lap, except NASCAR allows you to knock the crap out of each other when passing.

Bruce Kritzler

to me

And what was the deal with the Officials dq'ing so many people. It was like the Ohio HS State meet, where the officials think they have to dq anyone touching someone else. (or touching a line).

At first there were three DQ's in 5000 then only one.

From: George Brose

Phil Scott

George: You're killing me man, just finished watching USA destroy Serbia....looked like a repeat of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Rupp is tough cat, what a last 5k.

I found out Ryan Lochte actually has a patent on starting pistols, they are not on the market yet, and patent pending cause his mind went BLANK!

Phil in sweet Downtown Clayton,Ohio ......I just saw a dude come out the corn field behind my house looking like Glenn Cunningham saying BUILD A TRACK AND WE WILL RUN. ........got to go got work to do.......

Phil ,

Was Serbia in the Ottoman Empire or the Austro Hungarian Empire?

George

Here is a conversation between Jim Metcalf, John

Perryand Preston Davis regarding the 1500 and

5000.

Metcalf has broken down and analyzed the last 400

meters of the 1500, with that blazing 50+ lap. He

wishes

to put out a disclaimer on this data, because he measured distances and times from his viewing

screen.

He feels they are pretty accurate, but you shouldn't

be

betting your second mortgage on them.

This is something I made for my group...John, Dave, Preston..we had a thread going on the olympic's 1500 and 5000

OK....here is the story of the 1500m. You know how

several people at a crime scene give different stories. And what I remembered was not exactly what happened.

I recorded the 1500 and just spent 20 minutes in frame by frame analysis of the last 400m using the clock on the

screen that measures .1 instead of .10. And i measured

each runner on the various 100m lines. There are lines at

the 100m points and these are taken from the time when

each runner's foot touched the line and his body was

straight up.

This is what happened.

At the bell Centro was side by side by a guy, I think from Morroco.

The algerian (Makhloufi)was right there and in the next 20 meters was

on the shoulder of the guy who was on Centro's shoulder

so he was no more than .05 back. they were almost all 3 touching shoulders.

Then, inexplicably Makhloufi slowed, and when they came

off the turn he was .3 back at the 100m. Centro ran the

turn in 11.4 seconds, so an accelerated sprint had started.

Down the back stretch Kiprop came by the Makhloufi and

he went with Kiproc but Kiprop did not keep going. He slowed when he got to Centro and stayed a stride behind him.

I think the Algerian was racing Kiprop because he stayed

on his shoulder. (If Kiprop and the Algerian had gone right on by Centro, the race might have ended differently)

The 2nd 100m was run in 12.5. So they were floating to

the max. at 200m the Algerian was about .2 behind Centro and .1 behind Kiproc

On the turn, it tightened but the Algerian stayed on Kiprop's shoulder. I think he was racing Kiproc and had discounted Centro.

They coasted the turn in 15.3. at the end of the turn the Algerian moved by Kiprop.

With 100m to go Centro had a 0.1 lead on the Algerian. I

Centro may have pulled a little in the straight but the
Algerian came back and was closing at the finish. They ran the last 100m in 11.5. (That's 46.0 for 400) ed.

Those are close, as the four 100m times add up to 50.7

But that is a clock count .1 by .1 of how the last 400m was run.

Jim

From John

I think Centrowitz's coach knows how to give speed work. Maybe Rupp needs to borrow him for a month.

John

Jim replies:

That is really great...but it is obvious he has not had much speed work, given his performances in recent 5K and 10K. That is why he has gotten badly outkicked.

I don't know how much in endorsements he can get in marathon vs 5K and 10K but you cannot compete in diamond league in marathon and can only run one ever 4 -6 months and can run a 5K or 10K once a week. So It might cost him a lot of endorsement money to become a marathoner....

I would like to see what he could do at 5K or 10K if he had a month of Perry-Metcalf speed work to go with that tremendous base...

J

I think it is obvious now that Rupp's marathon training hurt his 5K and 10K performances.

He ran an incredible race today and showed incredible courage.

Between miles 22 and 23 Kipchoge ran a 9:11 2 mile and before that a 4:46 mile..

They had 4:46, 4:41, 4:35, from 21 thru 23 miles, so Rupp , at 21 miles ran 9:27 2 mile and then weathered part of the 9:35 before breaking.

Kipchoge ran 29:10 or some such seconds, I can't remember exactly, but the last 10K was incredible. and they ran in 94% humidity...

J

George Brose<irathermediate@gmail.com>

7:07 PM (17 minutes ago)

to Jim

Jim,

Do you mind if I use this thread on the blog? I think the technical people will enjoy it. Nice work on the analysis.

11.5 last hundred is pretty good. That 2:16 half made all

that speed possible. I think if they had all run 50-51

opening 400 and then gutted it out the next 1100, they

would have ended up with about the same time. 3:50.

sure...

Be my guest....just put in the disclaimer that they are just

my calculations and could be wrong but I spent a long time and ran it by over and over again...forward and backward. and the 110 splits seemed to fit with how they looked...

enjoy the blog..keep up the good work

George

Answers to Jim Fixx questions for the superintelligent

1. Strength Geoff Williams has also given us 'rhythmic' as an answer.2. Facetious
3. Bookkeeper
4. John, while James had had "had," had had "had had." "Had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.
5. All of them contain three consecutive letters of the alphabet.